American citizens of African descent. I am glad you have directed our attention to it, for I confess that the question is a grave one, which requires our serious investigation; and I trust to communicate to you hereafter the result of the judgment of several eminent journalists, whose conclusions in matters of national import, disconnected from party politics, frequently attract popular attention, and arouse the martial instinct of their clansmen of the press: men who, like Highland chieftains, light their fires upon the hill-tops of public opinion, and soon summon clans which thrill the country with the wild war-notes of its Donalds, Evans, and Lochiels. It cannot have escaped so close an observer as yourself," continued the journalist, "on presentment found by the body of the country, against its recent chief magistrate for national misdemeanor in his high attempt to restore the Confederate flags, how quickly the slogans of our Union army sent forth their shrill alarm."
The student inwardly thought it a matter for still graver speculation that moth-eaten flags should have kindled so much greater a flame among a liberty-loving people than their moth-eaten Fourteenth Amendment.
"I have no language," he replied, "which can sufficiently convey to you my appreciation of the favor you have already bestowed upon me, and I hesitate to tax your kind indulgence in the future. Your craft hold, indeed, the telescope of truth, which strips the distance of its phantasies. I am more than ever convinced of the difficulty of measuring the power and utility of the American press. Its generals, sir, are in command of the forces of civilization. Its staff appear to me to move about like field-marshals, directing the rank and file against what fortresses to move the battering-rams of truth, and whither to aim her javelins. The single journal of which you, sir, are the honored commandant can strike more terror into the hearts of the repudiators of the Constitutional Amendments, the betrayers of the civil rights of the American citizen of African descent and all others, than could 'the substance of ten thousand soldiers armed in proof,' with all the panoply of racial prejudice, its bucklers, and its shields."
It was not until this interview with the journalist, after the
